Week 80

This week was incredible and filled with miracles and tender mercies, like always. Susan and Leah came to church for Sacrament Meeting for the first time and loved it. 

On Monday, we were tracting a street, and we talked to this lady from Greece. She wasn't interested in us teaching her about the gospel, and we offered to do service. She declined, but we gave her our card with our number and told her to call us if she needed anything. As we walked away, her two little kids kept waving to us. And she was just staring at us from her door. We continued to knock for about 10 minutes, when we got a call. "Hi...uh Sister Lewis and Sister Miller. Hi. This is Leda who you met at my house a few minutes ago? Do you want to come back and talk?". We went back and we did some HTBT and taught her the Restoration. Then later on in the week we did some service for her, and she invited us over for lunch yesterday after church before I leave. We had delicious Greek food and got to know the husband a little better. They are an incredible family! 

We met a man named Shane* on the streets and had an awesome conversation about the Restoration! And gave him a Book of Mormon! 

Last night as we were contacting, we met so many amazing people. My favorite group was a husband and wife from Sri Lanka, Kasun* and Bhagya. We gave them a Book of Mormon and prayed with them! They are excited to come to church! 

Lindsay, from last week, has seen so many miracles as she prepared and had surgery, and is now recovering well! God is blessing her in so many ways!

I had my exit interview with President Burt on Friday after Zone Meeting. I am so grateful for such an amazing Mission President. I have learned so much from him and his wife. I'm so grateful for the priesthood leadership he gave as I served under his direction for the Lord Jesus Christ.

I got permission to go to Patricia's baptism in Surrey on Saturday. The service was all in Portuguese. Patricia is just incredible! She was glowing and was ready to make those covenants with our Father!

We had 2 dinners yesterday and one more offer for dinner. Our fridge is full of panset, spring rolls, chili sauce, watermelon, cherries, blueberries, and raspberries, all from yesterday. 

We got to spend some time with the Rauma's. They are fantastic. And so selfless. I am so grateful for them and their example! 

What an incredible experience my mission has been! I wouldn't trade it for the world. 

I have grown and changed and become more of the person I know Heavenly Father wants me to become. But becoming is a process! "Shall we not go on in so great a cause?" (Doctrine and Covenants 128:22). 

I've got a lot of drive for the next part of Heavenly Father's plan for me, and the road has missionary work painted all over it!

And from this point, I'll "go forward and not backward"!!

And for the last time,

Hermana Lewis

Crazy picture with the babies at Zone Meeting on Friday!

I got to see this awesome family again!

Pat got baptized!!

Valerie and Anna

Week 79

Buenos dias! Y feliz dia de independencia! Go America!! I think this is one of my favorite days of the year. And is being well celebrated by me.

"We have obtained a land of promise, a land which is choice above all other lands; a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath covenanted this land unto me,and to my children forever, and also all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord" (2 Nephi 1: 5, and the whole chapter is great if you want to read it).

On Monday night, we had the ward FHE potluck. It was fantastic. We got to get to know a lot more members! 

The rest of the week was a pretty great week. We taught Anh*'s daughter! It was really good! Her name is Dana* and she is 14 years old. 

In gospel principles yesterday, the lesson was on gifts of the spirit. We had to go around the room and say what gifts we wanted to develop. At the end, the teacher asked what gifts we have seen in others. Anh said that Sister Miller and I have the gift of working miracles because we were able to get his daughter to church!

We passed out a lot of Book of Mormons, too! Which is awesome! I love that book!

Ok. So this is where our week started getting crazy. 

We had our huge Canada Day ward picnic on Friday afternoon. It is top attended event by members, non-members, less actives, part members, etc, for our ward! Naturally that coupled with missionary work and free food meant I was super excited to go. 

We got to the picnic early and they were already set up, and I felt like we should go knock a couple doors before we went. We prayed and picked a street and started tracting. The first door was actually a home for nuns. Hahahahaaha Then the next door, no one answered, The next door, a nice guy named Shea* answered. He said some things to keep us going, and then we knocked on the 4th door. This lady answered and this is what happened:

S. Miller (in an excited voice): Hi! We're your Sister Missionaries in the area and we just wanted to come by and introduce ourselves! I'm Sister Miller!

Me: And I'm Sister Lewis! We share a message about Jesus Christ! The same ch--

Lady (mocking our enthusiasm): Hi! What's your message. Wait you want to share a message?! Fine. Come in. Come and share your message. What is it?!

Sister Miller and I prepared ourselves for whatever was about to come. 

We go in and she starts telling us to make ourselves comfortable because she can't. We helped her get a wedding gift ready and started talking about Christ. She told us right off the bat she wasn't going to convert, but she just needed Jesus Christ in her life more at that point. She calmed down a little after we were there, and she told us about a lot of things. She has cancer, and her mom has a heart problem. On Monday, she would have to go to the hospital to prep for her surgeries because she has 4 blood clots in her lungs because of her cancer. And 2 weeks after her surgery, her mom goes in for her procedures for her heart. She was extremely stressed and scared. She put "pray" on her calendar every day before her surgery, but had put it off and thought that maybe we were a gift from God. So she asked us to pray with her. 

We said a prayer with her and she was so grateful. We told her a little about what we do as missionaries, and we also offered to do service for her. She asked if we could stay for an hour and we told her we could. 

We stayed with her and talked with her and let her talk to us mostly as we helped her pack her bag for the hospital. She had a lot on her mind. We then also helped her clean her basement and do a couple other things around the house. At the end, I felt an impression to ask her if she wanted a priesthood blessing and she accepted! She told us that God had just been telling her, "I'm trying to give you gifts" and then we knocked on the door.

We went to the ward party with only 30 minutes left. We tried to talk to as many of our investigators and members as we could, eat, and find someone who could give our friend, Lindsay*, a blessing. 

In the middle of all of that, something horrible happened, which I can't write about, but it made me really defensive. Oh my goodness. It was lame. 

But then we got the Elders and the Silvas to come. 

They gave Lindsay a blessing and they were all grateful!

The awesome part about all of that, besides the fact that we had the experience, was that it was an answer to my prayers! We had been studying about finding a lot this past week as part of 12 weeks, and I had been praying for an unplanned opportunity to do service. This was it!

We also got accused of attacking someone, and someone we loved was attacked. But all is well. 

Love you!

Hna Lewis

Farewell to the Silvas

Carlo!!

Leftover cake=next few meals. Thank you, Burnaby ward!

Park-your-car Saturday!

Get it. Read it. Study it. Live it. 

Ok. So this here sounds crazy. But it tastes great! You make a grilled cheese. And you put jam on one side and then hot sauce on top! I'm going to make you all try it! 

12 Semanas (yesterday)

Happy 4th!

And don't mind me or my companion, but look at the guy in the middle! He's here at the library! He dresses like this every week.

Early on in the week, we had an FHE potluck to say bye to members of the ward who were leaving over the summer. Our WML and his wife, the Silvas, are leaving, and they were friends with Carlo (yes, the one from Surrey). He came to the party because it was the ward he was baptized in and saw me there! I hadn't had time to say bye to him, Dmitri, or Patricia, but he said he would come with them to our Canada Day BBQ. I love them!!!